


love on the cartesian plane

by pendules



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's known that Stevie doesn't talk much. He just does what he does.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	love on the cartesian plane

Emotion is like energy; it's never created or destroyed but converted from one form to another.

 

They're equal and opposites, head and heart, testing each other. It's constantly a challenge. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be like this. Maybe one of them was supposed to have the upper hand, but then it wouldn't be this, and none of it would be worth it.

It's only worth it because of this. Because they disagree sometimes, because one is irrational when the other is careful, because it's all about balance. It's all about balance until it comes to the important things.

 

Stevie tries to cover himself up, protect what's important, because he sees what it can do to people, has done to people: the spotlight, the public life. He thinks that if he gives it away, it'll become meaningless. (He leaves it all on the pitch though, because that is not, and never could be, the same.)

In the end, he gives everything away. He realises, somehow, that that can make it stronger, sharing it with the world. He never could have left (he knew it deep down), and he won't stop until they all know it as well. He wants to let them know, wants to show them he wants everything they want with the same passion and fire, and it becomes a challenge for himself. He makes it that.

Sometimes, it's not only about the emotion.

 

In some way, everything you do is a risk. In football, the risk increases tenfold. When you fall, you fall far and you fall hard, and you're never sure you can pick yourself up or if there'll be someone else there to do it. He does it because he knows it could be worth it. After all, this is the reason we all take risks. He would have known it was worth it even without the silver and gold and _Stevie_ and a city painted red (for a night, for all eternity). Sometimes, you don't need reasons. Ask any real football fan; the ones who will claim it's not about choice but about fate. But he knows, too, that sometimes, having reasons for loving something that doesn't need any reasons is the best feeling in the world.

 

This is where the similarities between Liverpool and Stevie end. He never used to consider them one entity (although they are), never was that selfish: with Stevie, it's less explainable. He's terribly naive sometimes, selfish, stubborn, and it's the hardest thing in the world to earn his respect (much less his love, because of what there is there to be compared to, because there are things there that is greater than any one person, or two people, things that belong to no one person and so can belong to everyone). He's uncomplicated from afar but Xabi starts to see there's more, much more, to him than meets the eye. He's not terribly imposing, or shouldn't be anyway, but somehow, playing with him, in that red shirt, is one of the most daunting things you can imagine. (It shouldn't be like this.)

The city loves him. Xabi's used to being loved without trying, to being good without trying, to taking it for granted and not thinking of it as an achievement: it's natural; it's how it should be. Steven changes all the rules. This, this takes some work. (Some heart.)

 

He's never been overly fond of public life either, but he knows how to give away precisely how much he wants to, which seems so contrived that it starts to annoy Steven.

"Why are you here?" And it's not nearly as juvenile as it could sound because this time, it's not about strength and solidity but about heart, belonging. Steven is already surprising him, like he knew he would.

Xabi's good at seeing through people, but it only works when they're hiding something. From this standpoint, it looks like Steven Gerrard is exactly who he tells you he is.

 

He does the only thing he can, something he hasn't done in years and years: he makes a city love him. (And he realises that this is something you cannot do if you don't love _this_ first.)

 

Steven doesn't accuse him of trying too hard, of strategising, plotting (like points that lead from one to the other or planning the move after your next and the one after that), of reducing his life and team and colour to math or a game. He finds himself wanting to, though, because maybe that'll make it a little more meaningless (from now on, he knows it won't ever be again), because he's a little afraid, because it's not something he's used to being.

 

It's known that Stevie doesn't talk much. He just does what he does.

 

Xabi thinks it happens because the first time Steven didn't know what to say, he kissed him.

And the next time, and the next time, and the next.

 

It's dangerous, and it's a delicate dance at the same time, like tackles and bruised shins to fingers grasping at yours and a quick motion upwards off the ground.

Dust yourself off. Start again.

 

It's a challenge and he thinks that's why he likes it. Xabi doesn't make it that way; he takes it on himself and it's how he's always done it. He does it for himself firstly (and this is why he comes off as selfish), but equally for his team, his city. The reasons are opposite, but the actions are equal, and Xabi can't understand at first, how easy it becomes to him—to separate himself at will and attach himself just as easily, to feel opposite emotions to the same outcome.

 

Xabi doesn't understand that he's both Steven's biggest weakness and greatest strength, that Steven is both the biggest part of Liverpool and the smallest, that Xabi both belongs here as if he has forever and loves it from afar as though he'll never have it (in this way, Steven and this club are one and the same).

 

Emotion doesn't need reason. But action does. Because irrational action has even greater risks. Steven tells him he loves him because he does, because it's more for himself than for Xabi (Xabi doesn't need to hear it), because he has to prove to himself that it's easier than he thinks, that it doesn't always have to be comparable to the greatest night ever experienced, that it could be simple like he's supposed to be, and this is supposed to be.

 

Xabi doesn't want it to always be like that though. He wants it to be all that it is and has been. This sport and this team and this place. The idea, and the _ideals_ , that something can be more than it was meant to be—that everything is more than what it was meant to be. That it's not about figures on a field of grass or a Cartesian plane but heart spilled onto a canvas for all time.


End file.
